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UWSim: Adding interactive markers

Although we already had some old work in this direction (thanks Mario!), we couldn't add it to main branch until last weeks. Today we are presenting interactive marker support in UWSim. To do so, we have updated the visualization_osg package and now it is available for ROS indigo and jade, and will be required in UWSim v1.4. This package allows to create markers and interactive markers in OpenSceneGraph. Although some things are still missing, such as menus, the main features are working and available in the github code and debian packages.

Using this package we have added interactive marker capabilities in UWSim, which means you should be able to create and move your own markers through the scene, and receive feedback in the server. Furthermore we have created a SpawnMarker service which will allow to create, modify and delete geometry through ROS service calls. As usual we added two interface examples to show how to use this new feature and provide basic code.

The first example followMarker creates an interactive marker that will be followed by a vehicle copying its pose. For this reason the example requires a dataNavigator topic of the vehicle. The second example uses the spawn marker service to create , modify or delete a mesh object in the desired position. More information about how to use this features is available in the uwsim wiki.

We are sure that this update will help to improve the usability of UWSim, and can be used to create much more interesting examples (scene configuration maybe?). We encourage you to share your ideas in the discussion group and contribute. Finally, here is a short video of the interactive markers in action.